


The Boy with the Notebook

by LittleLostPieces



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, References to Drug Use, a depressing lack of actual stripping, smitten!harry, stripper!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostPieces/pseuds/LittleLostPieces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a <a href="http://www.sendspace.com/file/2invnm">mix</a> by feathertofly.  Her summary is so much better than any I came up with, so I’m stealing that:  <i>in which Louis is a stripper with more issues than </i>Playboy<i> magazine, and Harry is the idealistic young writer who loves him, loses him, then wins him back again.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy with the Notebook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feathertofly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathertofly/gifts).



> Six months ago, I was determined not to write in this fandom because I was sure I couldn't do British characters any real justice. Then Cassi made a mix. I couldn't stop thinking about this story, so I wrote it and shared it only with her. We were talking about it again last night and I thought I'd finally bite the bullet and post it as a gift to her.
> 
> The mix can be downloaded [here](http://www.sendspace.com/file/2invnm).

There is nothing inherently wrong with admiring a boy of eighteen, an attractive young thing with his entire life stretched broad and full before him on a silver platter. Nothing implicitly states that he will grow bored and smash the incredibly fragile, quickly invested heart that falls hard, hard, harder for him every day. There are no explicit guarantees that everything will crumble to shit before a relationship can even begin to take a true shape.

Harry is beautiful and careless and wicked and radiant so, while there are no absolute certainties, the possibilities for soul-crushing heartbreak are endless.

Against all logic, it only makes Louis want him more. Wanting, he has learned, is the most dangerous thing of all.

“You know you’re only something like two years older than him, right?”

Shooting an unappreciative look over his shoulder, Louis huffs at Liam and then returns his eyes to the vision dancing to Adam Lambert’s _If I Had You_ between two equally nubile, shirtless bodies across the club. 

This is where Harry should be, shaking his body loose with anonymous faces on the dance floor and his morals loose with anonymous cocks in that sinful embrace of a mattress back at his flat. He should be waking up with a hangover straight from hell and a heavenly ache in every one of his incredibly tight muscles, no idea of where to lay the blame for his condition and smiling because it doesn’t matter. 

Louis opens his mouth to tell Liam exactly that when Harry turns, mop of curls plastered to his sweaty forehead as his long arms extend over his head and he rides the wave of the beat on the crotch of the guy behind him. Like some kind of perverted necromancer, his filthy little smile revives a part of Louis he thought was long dead and buried.

Wordlessly, Louis rests his hand, palm up, against the table and waits to feel the press of Niall’s fingers there. His eyes refuse to close, refuse to shutter against the blinding light of Harry’s blissful face as he grips his bottle with one hand and licks the pills from the other. 

He tilts his head back, unwilling to allow his eyes to win the war tonight. He blinks as the flashing disco lights above begin to blur, bumping and grinding into one another as the calm begins to swim through his veins. Before the happiness settles into his chest, before he can’t, he curses the day that gorgeous boy walked into his life.

*

It was a Tuesday night, like any other mundane work day really. The club was full of the usual clientele, the lonely and the married stinking of a desperate need for release. Saturday crowds covered Louis’ monetary expenses, but these men kept his soul from going completely bankrupt. The weekend warriors offered him large bills, fancy meals, and extravagant gifts; tonight, he would be fed attention and lavished with adoration. He would revel in their uncontrollable desire for him.

On the weekends, he was a headliner. On Tuesdays, and all of the other weeknights, he was a god.

He had only just stepped onto the stage, opening bass strains of the song Niall had introduced to Louis just that afternoon beating through the speakers, when he saw the boy in the back corner.

Hunched over a notebook, pint at his elbow, he scribbled furiously as though he was completely unaware that he was expected to pay more than cover charge in tonight’s exchange. A few dark curls peeked out from beneath his black beanie, brushing his high cheekbones, drawing Louis’ eyes to scandalously full lips, the bottom of which was caught tight between a shock of the boy’s white teeth.

There were thirty men glued to every beat of Louis’ body, to every pulse of the music, and the only thing that mattered was the one boy in the back booth who couldn’t be bothered to spare a fleeting, disinterested glance.

*

Strong hands and thick thighs bracket Louis’ on the floor as he undulates to a slur of music and fights to lose himself in the intimate touches of a complete stranger. When a knuckle skims his cheekbone, Louis loops his arms around the man’s neck and purrs like a desperate kitten, pushing his hips forward until he feels the solid response against his thigh. 

This, Louis can do. This makes sense. This is tangible, skin on skin, direct. This is safe.

He shudders at the warm breath against his neck, the low rumble of words muffled by the house music against his ear. Their meaning is clearer than Louis’ vision when he blinks at the man and nods. 

His body hasn’t been his own for awhile now; allowing it to be led from the club hardly seems a tragedy. Despite what romantic boys with lips of poetry and eyes full of cartoon hearts would attempt to convince him, Louis doesn’t belong in some love scene, candlelit while the sweetest mouth whispers affection into his skin.

The sooner Harry learns that, the better off they’ll both be.

*

“He looks good, yeah?”

Surprised by the interruption for only a minute, those preposterous lips quirked into a knowing smile as the boy with the notebook nodded toward his equally young and tantalizing friend. “Zayn’s hypnotized.”

Louis followed Zayn’s eyeline to the stage, where Liam was teasing crowd more than he was teasing the buttons on his white dress shirt. “That’s why he’s a headliner,” he said with a nod.

The boy with the notebook – though, Louis noticed, said notebook appeared to be conspicuously absent that evening – just ran a hand over his stomach as he stood awkwardly from his seat in the booth and said, “His chest is impressive.”

“Got a giant cock, too, that one,” Louis nodded toward the stage.

“Good,” the boy said, laughing as he reached over to pat his friend’s shoulder. “That’s everything Zayn looks for in a man.”

This time, Louis was smiling at the boy when he said, “As he should.”

“Hm,” the boy hummed, the sound piercing through all of the catcalls to shoot through Louis in a foreign way. “Priorities,” he added with a grin that followed the hum like a one-two punch right to Louis’ gut.

“I can actually hear both of you,” Zayn finally said, cutting a look toward them. 

It lasted long enough for the boy to press a finger to those lips of his, as though they weren’t distracting enough already. “Shh,” he said. “Watch the naked dancing boy.”

He pointed a long finger and Zayn’s eyes followed dutifully. 

His hands were enormous. 

Swallowing every comment he wanted to make about _that_ fact, Louis said, “Where’s your notebook?”

The boy blinked. “I’m not working,” he said, as though it should be obvious.

“Oh, it’s for work?” Louis asked, though he had assumed as much at one point. “Here I thought you, were filling your diary with dirty fantasies.” He winked for good measure, only slightly disappointed when the boy only laughed instead of blushing. 

He tucked his hands into the low pockets of his tight-fitting jeans. “Dear diary, it is day seven of my pathetic resolution to spend more time alone, lurking about in strip clubs.”

“I was hoping more for something like, dear diary, I can’t drag myself away from a divine establishment, where I’ve become obsessed with one particular vision of virility and sexual energy,” Louis shot back.

Finally, the boy flushed a bit, the pink tint bleeding into his pale cheeks like the stain left after holding cinnamon sweets too long in the sun. “My lead character has a fantastic ass,” he said, running one of those hands over the back of his heated neck.

So he was a writer. Of course he was.

“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Louis said, sliding his own hands over the back of his shorts.

The boy’s eyes tracked the movement rather blatantly, his tongue trailing slowly over his bottom lip. 

Suddenly, Louis turned his attention to the other side of the booth. “Hey. Zayn, was it?” Zayn turned to meet his eye only after Liam had sauntered off of the stage at the end of his number. “He’ll be over by the bar now. He doesn’t drink so you should buy him something flat and boring. He’ll be yours in a second.” He punctuated the statement with a wink and didn’t bother hiding his laughter at the way Zayn scrambled out of the booth, already fishing his wallet from his pocket.

When Louis returned his attention to the boy at his side, he was nodding. 

“Smooth,” he complimented.

Slipping into the space between the boy and the edge of the booth, Louis sat and waited for his new friend to do the same. When the boy was pressed close to Louis’ side, Louis flung an arm over the boy’s shoulder. “What is your name?”

The boy blinked a bit. “And you’re direct,” he said with a nod of what Louis hoped was appreciation.

“I can’t very well keep calling you the boy with the notebook, can I?”

It earned him a most electrifying smile. He shook his head, blinked again as though he couldn’t quite understand Louis. It was a common reaction, one that Louis quite prided himself on, actually.

“Harry,” he finally said, extending one hand in a proper greeting.

Louis slid his own fingers against Harry’s, ignoring the rush of heat that raced from his spine to his toes and back up, settling low in his belly. “Louis.”

“I know,” Harry reminded him with another nod toward the stage.

Without a thought or care, Louis stroked his fingers against the soft fabric of Harry’s shirt. “Oh, the things I could teach you, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes darted to Louis lips, spoke to them when he said, “Think I could probably teach you a few, too.”

*

The term ‘walk of shame’ implies, to some degree, a modicum of regret. Being as he gave up on second-guessing his own poor life choices long before he started accepting cash for his body, Louis simply refers to this lonely trek at four in the morning as a return trip home, or a typical Saturday night. He stares blankly at the passing street lights, pointedly blocking all thoughts of where Harry may be right now, who he may be with, and the innumerable things they might be doing.

Is he still with both boys from the club or just one of them? Did he find another toy to play with after Louis left? Did he take someone home, show him that closet he calls an office, and maybe lead someone out onto the rooftop garden where poetry sounds like incantation against the backdrop of the unobstructed moonlight? Did he agree to go to his new friend’s house instead? Or did they choose that pornographic-looking, by-the-hour motel Harry is always begging to investigate, the one even Louis can’t bring himself to try? Is Harry with someone who will give him what Louis can’t, or isn’t willing to?

That answer goes without saying, really.

He wonders, only briefly, about what Harry is doing right now, whether he’s taking the top or the bottom, and in what position? Is he teaching someone else that trick Louis taught him, the one that makes Harry so tight, Louis is sure his brain and his heart will simultaneously choose to stop working? Is he making those deep-throated moans, his head falling back until the long expanse of his neck is on full display from the first press of wet lips wrapped tightly around his cock? Is he in control tonight or –

Louis smiles, a small, private expression, at the idea that Harry is ever – even when he’s begging, all gorgeous and wanton – in less than complete control.

As the cab eases to a stop in front of his walk-up, Louis shakes the questions and fantasies away. Alone in his bedroom is no place for thoughts like this tonight. Without the judgmental eyes of the cab driver in the mirror, he’ll be prone to pitiful, maudlin fits and possibly tears. If there is one thing Louis won’t do, it is cry over a ridiculous boy he should have known better than to approach in the first place.

His resolve lasts approximately three minutes – the amount of time it takes Louis to pay the driver, unlock his front door in the dark of the night, and stumble through the lounge to his bedroom.

He doesn’t bother turning on a light, opting to strip out of his sweat-and-glitter soaked clothes and leaving them in a pile on the floor. He trips over his own shoe, sprawling onto the bed and, more importantly, a grunting lump on the right side.

“Hey,” Harry’s soft, sleep-heavy voice greets as he rolls to face Louis in the dark.

On some level, Louis has trouble finding it surprising. Harry’s body is smooth beneath the mound of blankets, warm and naked as it winds like ivy around Louis’ legs and chest. His breath ghosts over Louis’ collarbone; his hair, still damp and smelling of Louis’ shampoo, tickles Louis’ ear.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Louis whispers into the top of Harry’s head.

Pressing two fingers to Louis’ lips, Harry hums contentedly and settles back into sleep.

Louis just blinks at the ceiling and wonders what he’s done to deserve this.

*

The sun was already starting to rise when Louis rolled out of Harry’s bed, his magnificent, queen-sized bed with the firm mattress, the soft sheets, and the huge pillows. 

“Hey.” Harry’s arm flailed, seeking Louis’ retreating form. “What’re you doing?”

Louis just smiled. Harry’s hair was stuck to one side of his head, snaking out like a lopsided Medusa on the other. The bruises and love bites along his collarbones and chest were a slight distraction, but they weren’t the first souvenir Louis had left a one-night stand.

“Going home,” he answered, his voice scraping against his throat. 

Arching like cat luxuriating in a sun-drenched window, Harry raised his arms over his head, clasping his hands and groaning. He was a goddamn seductress, Harry was.

“Stay,” he whined, flipping onto his side to hold the blankets open in an invitation. 

“Lesson number one, young Harold,” Louis started, moving around the bed to sit beside him and run a finger over that tantalizing lower lip. “Always leave them wanting more.”

Harry glanced over Louis’ shoulder. “Do you see a stage in this room?”

He didn’t see much in the room; there was barely room for the bed and one wardrobe. “No.”

Withdrawing one arm from the covers, Harry grasped at Louis’ wrist and pulled him closer. “Because this isn’t your club. Your rules are useless to me.”

The kisses were addictive, quick and playful, leaving Louis wishing that he actually could climb back into the bed with this beautiful, beautiful boy. 

It would be the worst kind of mistake, one that he’d made before and had already learned the consequences of quite well. 

“I’ll see you later, Harry,” he said, extracting himself from Harry’s scrabbling, insistent fingers.

There was another whimper at his back, another moan, but Harry didn’t wait any longer for Louis to respond. The rustling of the blankets and the soft grunts as he gathered his pants and pulled them over his long legs and narrow hips were Louis’ only clues to Harry’s actions at his back.

By the time Louis turned to reject his offer, he found himself face to face with that bright, expectant smile once again. “You’re very sweet, love,” he said, lifting one hand to stroke Harry’s left cheek. “You should really get your beauty sleep, though.”

He didn’t mention that one more offer would have sent him scurrying right back into Harry’s bed. He couldn’t dwell on that now; the most important thing was getting out of the flat, away from this hypnotic, potentially addictive, boy.

It made him feel like a Disney Princess, the way Harry insisted on walking him to the front door. He hooked one finger into the belt loop on the front of Louis’ jeans and held him there in the entry for far longer than anyone should ever detain a meaningless fling. It was all very movie-magic and singing-birds, full of possibility and promise.

Reminding himself that it was nothing of the sort, that fairy tales were for those far less jaded and deluded, he slid one hand into Harry’s hair and pulled him down to capture his bottom lip between Louis’ teeth. He could feel the corners of Harry’s mouth turning into a brilliant grin before he tugged once and stepped out onto the porch.

“You have sweet dreams, young Harold.”

*

It’s nearly noon when Louis rolls out of bed, body far too young to ache and protest with each step he takes around the room, gathering a pair of sweats and a tee shirt from the hamper in the corner. 

The overwhelming aroma of eggs wafts through the flat, growing in intensity as Louis makes his way toward the kitchen. His mouth is watering when he stops in the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest, though it may have more to do with the way Harry is dressed only in his boxers, swaying his hips and humming a vague tune, as he stirs the eggs in the pan at the stove.

Sunshine floods through the open window over the sink, lighting Harry as through some ridiculous Instagram filter. He snags his bottom lip between his teeth and Louis knows he’s been caught lurking.

“Smells really good in here.”

In profile, he can see Harry’s smile spreading across his face. “D’you want bacon?” he asks, barely turning.

Louis pats his stomach, cursing the watering in his mouth as the fat begins to sizzle in the pan. “I better not,” he says.

Harry’s eyes roll, his disheveled hair bobbing as he says, “You can handle one or two.”

There’s a temptation here, something in Louis’ chest that begs for notice, something that says Harry doesn’t care if he gains a pound here or there, that it doesn’t matter if his ass isn’t the only thing that bounces when Louis is on stage. More than the broad stretch of tight skin over strong shoulders, Louis finds himself desperately wanting this, to believe that were true.

“You’re impossible,” he teases, crossing the room to rest a hand on Harry’s waist. He presses a kiss to the side of his head, taking note of the pillow marks still pink against Harry’s cheek. 

When he ruffles Harry’s bedhead for good measure, Harry laughs. “That is true.”

It only takes two steps away to feel the counter at his back. Louis leans, arms crossed across his chest. “So how was your night?”

Harry nods and answers, “Fun,” without hesitation. Nodding toward the kettle at the far corner of the stove, he says, “Your tea should be ready.”

It is possible that Harry is the most transparent person Louis has ever met. His attempts at changing the subject are downright laughable so he doesn’t bother hiding his grin as he takes a mug from the cabinet and then heads to the refrigerator for the milk.

“Mine was fun as well,” he says a bit louder than is strictly necessary. “Sweaty fun.”

He shouldn’t take satisfaction in the way Harry’s spine tenses against his prodding, but Louis does. “Smelled like it,” is all he mutters under his breath. It’s unclear whether he even meant for Louis to hear it.

Even Louis can admit that his tone is far too jovial when he bumps his hip against Harry’s and reaches for the tea kettle. “Don’t be mad, love.”

Head dipped until his fringe covers his eyes, Harry says, “I’m not. D’you want a banana with this?”

Louis has played this game a thousand times; it’s always fun. Poking and teasing at someone until they blow provides him more entertainment than it should, especially when that someone is Liam or Niall. 

When that someone is Harry, attempting to hide the wounded expression in his glassy eyes, Louis feels a stab of something more akin to guilt. It makes him angry.

“Look at me, Harry,” he demands, angling for a battle he doesn’t even want to fight. 

For the longest time, Harry stands there, head bowed like a prayer while he grips the edge of the stove until his knuckles turn white. When he does speak, the words are so soft, Louis has to strain to hear them.

“Do we have to have this conversation again?”

Louis’ response pours over his lips before he can think to stop them. “If you’d listen-“

“You think I don’t hear you?” Harry interrupts, uncharacteristic fury warring with heart-wrenching pain across his delicate face. “You keep saying the same things, over and over again. I can’t help but hear you.”

“And yet you keep showing up,” Louis accuses.

“You gave me a key!”

Though he’s not wrong, Louis is more surprised by the volume of Harry’s words. In the nine months he’s known Harry, only his laughter has been loud. Louis finds, surprisingly, he would much prefer that sound right now.

“Well, you were depressing the neighbors,” he says in the weakest possible excuse for a joke. “Moping about on the doorstep at all hours of the night, waiting for me to come home like a puppy.”

The sarcastic, disbelieving twist of Harry’s lips is the ugliest expression Louis has ever seen on a human face, he thinks. He keeps his death grip on the stove with one hand and brings the other to rest on his hip as he opens his stance toward Louis, height more imposing than it has any right to be. He sniffles once and blinks back another round of tears, blanching as though he can’t decide what to say next.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” Louis says, taking a step forward without thinking. He brushes a thumb under Harry’s eye, capturing a single tear and wiping it away.

“Don’t.” Finally, Harry takes a step back and scrubs a hand over his own face, his head – his entire body – shaking with the force of his resolve. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“You _are_ a child,” Louis returns. It’s harsh, yes, but Harry needs to feel this truth deep into his bones. He needs this lesson more than any trick or turn Louis could ever teach in his bed.

Exasperated, Harry says, “You are only two years older than me, Lou!” with arms that flail helplessly at his sides.

Slinking back, Louis wonders if the right words would somehow get through to Harry, if there is a miraculous lexicon that could lead him to Louis’ reality. “You have any idea how long that is in stripper years?” is what he settles on. 

He knows immediately that he’s chosen incorrectly.

“I’m the child and yet you are the one who can’t make it through an adult conversation without trying to make a cheeky fucking joke,” Harry says with another incredulous shake of his head.

“I can’t be what you need!”

The words explode violently, startlingly, from Louis’ chest with such a voracity he fears they might take both he and Harry out in their wake. He stumbles back, leaning heavily to the wall for support his knees are no longer capable of giving.

For the longest moment, stretching infinitely between them in the restrictive confines of this damned kitchen, Louis wishes he had just punched Harry in his kidneys. Perhaps Harry would look less pained after a physical attack. The knowledge that he’s the one who keeps inflicting this pain on such an innocent resonates into hollows that have long since gone numb.

Finally, Harry shakes his head and licks his lips. “I think you’re more afraid that I _can_ be what you need, Louis.” Crossing with a dignity Louis will never hope to possess, Harry presses a kiss to his forehead and then points to the stove, already loping from the room in a determined stride. “Your breakfast is getting cold,” he says over his shoulder.

Long after the front door has clicked shut and the house has grown deafening in its silence, Louis sits in the middle of his kitchen floor, staring at a mess of broken dishes and splattered breakfast foods, rivulets of tea staining a winding path down the wall that echoes the tear tracks on his own cheeks.

Here he sits, crying over a ridiculous boy he should have known better than to approach in the first place. 

*

“I thought you’d be gone by now,” Harry teased, looking up from the book he was reading at his desk as Louis hovered in the doorway.

Early morning sunlight filtered through the blinds, washing the room gold with it’s mid-summer hue. “You look very studious,” he said, smiling at the flush that raced up Harry’s neck at the compliment.

“Thank you,” he said. Nodding toward Louis, he added, “There’s tea in the kitchen. I believe you said that you’re positively dreadful without it in the morning.”

Eyes wide, Louis let himself into the room and dropped onto the corner of Harry’s desk, spinning to fold his legs in front of himself. He tilted his head, considering Harry carefully while Harry pretended to continue reading. 

“Are you a real boy?” Louis finally asked.

With a short laugh, Harry looked up, one eyebrow quirked. “What? Because I made you tea?”

Louis nodded toward the book. “And because you begin reading as soon as you wake up.”

“Your standards are rather low, yeah?”

“You have no idea,” Louis mumbled, reaching for the book and barking a laugh of surprise when Harry jerked it away.

Their eyes caught, held, soft smiles carrying on a conversation Louis could never speak aloud. 

Without breaking eye contact, without losing his brilliant smile, Harry said, “Go on then. Get your tea. I’ll be right here when you get back.”

Waiting. Harry would be there, waiting for Louis to return. 

Louis couldn’t help wondering, _Have you always been here, waiting for me?_ He quickly dismissed it, chuckling at his own stupidity. After only a couple of months, the boy with the notebook was turning him into some kind of daydream believer. It was quite hilarious.

*

The music bleeds into the lights, swirling through Louis’ veins as he moves to the beat without worry or care for choreography. They’re not here to see him dance, not really. They’re here to watch him move, to imagine fucking him, to slot him into their faceless fantasies. He’s happy to oblige, smiling lazily with each thrust and roll of his hips along the edges of the stage.

Something is off – he knows full well what it is – and the pills Niall gave him earlier are doing nothing to dull the screaming voices inside his own head. 

_I think you’re more afraid that I can be what you need._

Harry doesn’t know what Louis needs. He certainly can’t _be_ what Louis needs. No one person on earth could ever hope to fill the staggering abyss that resides where Louis’ soul used to be. Positively not a boy with a notebook in the back of a strip club, looking for something that Louis was never supposed to give him in the first place.

Relationships, as he understands them in the most idyllic sense, are supposed to consist of a near-equal give and take. Respect is mutual and understanding bartered for compassion, kindness, and support. 

Love means standing together, bending like a pair of reeds in a hurricane, clutching to one another in the hopes that you’re strong enough not to snap against the elements. It means kneeling together after you shatter anyway, picking up each other’s pieces and gluing them back together, not being bothered to care if shards are missing or don’t fit the way they once did.

In a fairy tale world, it’s beautiful, but Louis doesn’t have any pieces left to find. He’s started giving them away before he was old enough to recognize just how valuable they were, charging for them when the realization set in and he needed a roof over his head, food on his table. Puzzles can’t be solved when all of the pieces have been scattered on the wind and carried to the deepest caverns of Hell.

Someday, when the translucent glass that protects Harry’s fragile heart begins to crack and break, he’ll need someone to come alongside, someone whose own shield is strong enough to spare a part or two where Harry’s have been ground to dust, to assure him that it’s as beautiful as it ever was.

The only remnants Louis has to left are shrapnel lodged deep into the meager remains of his dignity. They’re hardly worth offering and, though he’ll never admit it, he fears extracting them will cause him to bleed out, to fade away, completely. 

_I think you’re afraid that I can be what you need._

On the one hand, Harry was right. He absolutely can be what Louis needs him to be. The problem is that Louis was also right; he’s incapable of being what Harry needs.

As Niall is so fond of saying, usually at the most inopportune moments, “Sometimes just giving a shit about someone ain’t enough, mate.”

*

Louis’ limbs were Jell-o, cradled loose between Harry’s sprawled legs. He rested his cheek against Harry’s chest, listened to the lazy beat of his heart, skimming his knuckles along the lines of Harry’s ribs. His brain was mush, far too much so to worry about whether or not he should have been darting for the door. 

“I want to know everything about you,” Harry said suddenly

“I can’t tell you everything, love,” Louis said, burying his unexpected smile in Harry’s sweat-dampened skin. “Gotta keep an air of mystery, don’t I?” 

Harry answered Louis’ question with one of his own, “Why’d you choose dancing?” His fingers scratched over the back of Louis’ neck and sent jolts of excitement racing down Louis’ spine. 

“Hm,” Louis responded, arching into Harry’s chest. “I like to think dancing chose me, actually.”

Slapping a weak hand against Louis’ shoulder, Harry nearly whines, “I’m being serious!”

Louis finally looked up and pressed a kiss to Harry’s nipple. “So’m I.” He dragged the point of his tongue in a circle around it, feeling Harry’s cock harden against Louis’ stomach in a more-than-pleasant fashion. “I like to think this is an ass made for shaking on a stage.” 

A quick glance to Harry’s face gave Louis’ heart another lurch. He was so goddamn open, so willing to show every thing he wanted and was feeling in every single moment. 

“I’m a fan,” Harry finally said, slipping his hands down Louis’ back until he could cup Louis’ ass and squeeze it, winking when Louis’ eyes widen. “Where’d you come from?”

“What d’you mean?”

Harry’s chest vibrated beneath Louis’ cheek. “It’s not a trick question.” His words curled around his dry laughter, a delightful sound that warmed Louis like a heavy blanket on a cold day. He almost missed it when Harry said, “I'm from Cheshire.”

An image sprung to Louis’ mind, slotting in alongside the new information. He smiles at the idea of a young Harry, younger anyway, dressed in a tweed blazer and a bow tie, sat under a tree with a thick book in his lap, curls rustling with a cool, autumn breeze. The posh boy against the backdrop of lush lawns and rustic, stone buildings appealed to Louis more than he thought it should.

Rising, Louis rested his chin against Harry’s sternum, tilting his head when he asked, “How does a boy from Cheshire end up in the back of a dark strip club in London, young Harry?”

Harry raised an eyebrow and wrapped his hand around the back Louis’ neck, considering him fondly. “I took a train,” he answered sarcastically.

It was terrifying, the simmering keenness that was edging toward a boil beneath Louis’ skin. His voice trembled when he said, “I have four sisters,” as though revealing a deepest, darkest secret.

When Harry smiled, eyes sparkling and teeth a blinding white in the sliver of moonlight through the blinds, when he said, “I have one,” in an equally hushed whisper, the fear began to subside. 

Louis couldn’t say whether that was better or not.

*

Thumbing through his tips for the night, Louis licks salty beads of sweat from his upper lip and nods his head in time with the song Niall is spinning for Liam on the stage right now. He continues through the double dressing room doors and allows his smile to melt from his face as the catcalls and whistles fade behind him.

He didn’t actually expect Harry to show up tonight, so he’s not sure why it bothered him so much every time he looked up to find that back booth dark and empty. He _shouldn’t_ be here. It’s good that he isn't here.

Dropping onto the stool in front of his mirror, Louis tosses a wad of notes next to his wallet and watch, his eyes snagging on the folded sheet of plain notebook paper in the center of his vanity. His name is scrawled in thick, black letters across the front. He would assume it was a misguided love note from a delusional patron, were it not for the sprigs of apple mint and lavender, tied together with a simple string, on top of the paper.

Shame blazes hot in his cheeks as he stares at the note, unable to force his hands into moving toward it. Louis looks at the pills and the three liquor bottles at the edge of his table, the cosmetics and hair products strewn about, the tubes of glitter and the gold g-string he opted not to wear on stage tonight. These are the reasons he never allows Harry to accompany him backstage after one of his performances.

This is all evidence needed to make the case Louis has been pleading for months now, all the proof of his sad, disgraceful life spread out carelessly along one pitted table top. He’s always been honest with Harry, Liam says to a fault, but words paint a far less damning picture than the visuals ever could.

Finally, with shaking hands, he reaches for the note.

> _**Things You Should Know** _
> 
> _1\. You are not the heir to the throne of Satan._  
>  2\. You are not broken beyond repair.  
>  3\. You are not an unsolvable riddle.  
>  4\. You are a beautiful man with an intoxicating body. Your face is not so shabby, either.  
>  5\. You smile rather fondly when you’re tired. I find it breathtaking.  
>  6\. You whisper things into my hair when you think I’m sleeping, things you desperately want me to know but are terrified for me to hear. I’ll not repeat them, even to you, because I quite like the idea of holding your secrets safe inside my head.  
>  7\. I am not without scars of my own. In your attempts to caution me against the evils of the world, you have failed to notice a hundred fissures threading across my heart. It is still beating.  
>  8\. I am not blind to the entirety of exactly who you are, no matter how fool-proof you think your masks are.  
>  9\. I am not afraid of you.  
>  10\. I am not remotely interested in losing you. 
> 
> _**Bonus** : I am flawed, imperfect, often stumbling to find the right words to say, especially to you. This is the fourteenth draft of this fucking list, narrowed down from fifty, every one of them true. Someday, when you’re ready to hear them, I will share the rest. _

Paper crumpling loudly in his hands, Louis draws his knees to his chest, buries his face, and sobs under the weight of words he wishes he could believe as purely as Harry does.

*

Before Harry, Louis was perfectly happy to start a fight with any bloke who even started to wear out his welcome. He would say horrible things, using their insecurities and weaknesses against them before they could do the same.

He would have loved to do the same with Harry, but Harry didn’t seem to notice. He merely rested one hand on his hip, the other leaning heavily against Louis’ dresser. He tilted his beer to his lips, hiding the teasing smile behind a noisy swallow.

“You are the most infuriating human being I have ever met,” Louis fired, wishing to hell he could kick Liam, Zayn, and Niall out of the living room. If any other man had let them all in, used Louis’ living room as some impromptu gathering place, he would have no trouble. Fucking Harry Styles.

In response, Harry lowered his glass. He chased a droplet from the corner of his lip with his thumb, ducking his head in just enough of an apology without looking like he was sorry at all. 

“Why you mad at me, Lou? Huh?” He began to walk forward, brow lowered and eyes raised like a jungle cat stalking his prey.

Harry was not a lion, though. Harry was a kitten. He wasn’t supposed to affect Louis like that. 

“They’re your friends,” Harry added, fingers digging into Louis’ hips and pulling him flush against Harry’s own. 

He had reasons. Louis knew he had reasons for being angry when he ordered Harry into the bedroom. “I didn’t give you that key so you could invite everyone over for board games and biscuits,” he said, though even he could admit that it sounded like more of a pout than a legitimate point of contention.

With nimble fingers, Harry began to unbutton Louis’ jeans. Leaning in close, he breathed hot, wet air over Louis’ ear when he said, “You gave it to me so you could fuck me whenever you wanted.” His hand burnt Louis’ skin like chemical fire when he added, “And you still can. _Whenever_ you want.”

Momentarily staggered by the idea of Harry dropping to his knees, three of their friends right outside the door with no clue of what was happening, Louis watched Harry begin a graceful descent. 

He was as surprised as Harry when he clamped a heavy hand on Harry’s shoulders and shook his head. “Get up. I don’t think Liam would ever recover if he has to come in here to play a few hands because you rendered my legs useless for the rest of the night.”

Proud. Harry’s smile was beaming and proud as he steadied himself on his feet and wrapped Louis’ wrist in one of his enormous hands. “When they’re gone,” he whispered conspiratorially.

Yes, when they were gone, Harry’s mouth was going to have a lot of amends to make, loads of forgiveness to seek for the domestic mess he was making of Louis' life, inviting mutual friends into his flat for a night of wine and card games, making sandwiches and planning a proper night in as though they were some sort of actual couple.

Louis was sure that Harry would add a few more sins to the list before the night was over, too. As soon as the others were gone, Louis would teach him just how domestic they were not, leave reminders of what their _relationship_ was against the pale, smooth skin of Harry's tiny bum. He was determined not to stop until they could both see the lines where the boundaries were starting to blur.

*

“I didn’t think you would come,” Harry greets, looking up from his notebook, face somber and wide-open with so much emotion Louis nearly takes a step backward.

He’s sat against wall of the herb garden at the center of the rooftop, awash in moonlight and surrounded by scents of rosemary, lavender, and apple mint. His hair hangs limp against his forehead, as though he’s raked his fingers through it far too many times tonight. The dark circles beneath his eyes give his lack of sleep away, even in the shadows of the night.

He’s never been more beautiful.

Louis crosses slowly, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his own jeans, shoulders hunched against the slight chill of the early summer night. “I was only trying to protect you.”

The amusement normally present on Harry’s face is replaced tonight by a pained longing that splits Louis’ heart in half. “You were trying to protect _you_ ,” he says, eyes tracking Louis’ every moment as he drops to the ground at Harry’s side. “Can you at least be honest enough to admit that this has never been about me? Not really?”

In the cab between the club and this rooftop, Louis made a decision. Now that Harry is beside him, staring, expecting, holding to that decision is infinitely more difficult than it should be.

Reaching without thinking, he draws Harry’s hand into his lap, threading his fingers through them, watching them tangled together as though all of the words will suddenly come to mind.

“You’re right. I’ve spent the better part of my life believing that I am this body and the way it moves. When I look at you, I see everything I could have been if I hadn’t believed it, though. It makes me want to dirty you up and corrupt you, and it makes me want to hide you away and shelter you from assholes like me at the same time.” When Harry brushes his thumb against Louis’, Louis risks a glance up and blanches. “It doesn’t actually scare me until you look back at me, though.”

Before Harry left that note on Louis’ dressing room vanity tonight, Louis knew it. He wasn’t ready to admit it, still isn’t sure that he is now, but he knew it. 

“Do you know why I first talked to you?”

Shaking his head, Harry raises their joined hands to his mouth, pressing reassuring kisses to Louis’ knuckles. “Why?” he finally asks.

“Because you never looked at me when I was on stage,” Louis confesses. “You kept coming in, paying attention to everyone but me. It made me quite mental.”

Smiling softly, Harry nods. “I paid attention to you. I just found you infinitely more fascinating when you came off the stage.”

“But that’s not where I was meant to be watched,” Louis argues, smiling for the first time when he catches sight of the briefest twinkle in Harry’s eyes. “You terrify me, young Harry. For what I could do to you and for what you’re already doing to me.”

Slipping his hand out of Louis’, Harry leans back against the wall and winds his arm around Louis’ waist, pulling him in tight. “I spend seventy percent of my time scared of what you’re thinking, doing, or saying about me and about yourself in any given day.”

Louis laughs before he can stop himself, a bark of a sarcastic sound that permeates the night around them. “That’s no foundation for a relationship, is it? Just bein’ scared of each other all the time.”

“I don’t know. My mum always said that you should do something every day that scares you. It’s more rewarding. You’re something that scares me, so I’m alright with doing you every day.” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully, digging his fingers into the space between Louis’ ribs until Louis can’t hold his laugh at the foolishness of it all back any longer.

“You can’t chat me up while you’re looking like a twelve-year-old, Haz,” Louis tries to scold, smacking Harry’s thigh. 

Harry just traps Louis’ hand beneath his own and says, “Seriously, though, I’m not afraid of the same things you are. You’re not afraid of the same things I am. I think we balance each other quite nicely, Lou.”

He says it with such conviction, such a pleasant smile and assurance, that Louis can’t be bothered to argue right now. Maybe it’s the fragrant, chilled air that’s raising the goosebumps on his arms, but he figures it probably has more to do with Harry’s hands pressed against his back and his thigh, the steady beat of Harry’s heart against his Louis’ back, like he’s perfectly content and relaxed just sitting here on the roof for the rest of the night. 

There’s still an overwhelming urge to fight this, to question it and run from it. There may always be, but Louis finds that leaning into it instead of kicking and pushing it further away keeps the pounding in his head at bay.

It’s been awhile since Louis just sat with someone, making no attempt to move past the awkward, silent stages into something faster, dirtier, and louder. It’s been longer since he wanted to know something about a man, something more than what he looks like under his clothes.

“Hey, Harry?”

“Hm?”

“What’s your book about?”

He feels Harry startle behind him, a brief flinch before he slides his hand over Louis’ thigh and around his stomach, hugging him in closer. Against his ear, Harry says, “It’s about a boy from Cheshire who moves to London and falls in love with a stripper.”

Louis’ heart kicks up, his neck and cheeks flushing, his voice catching in his throat like gravel when he asks, “And do they get a happily-ever-after, these boys in your book?”

Harry’s chuckle resonates to Louis’ toes. “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten there yet.” He presses a kiss to the side of Louis’ head and adds, “I certainly hope so.”

**Author's Note:**

> Once again - because I'm not above being annoying in service to my friends - you can download feathertofly's mix - Behold the Hurricane - [here](http://www.sendspace.com/file/2invnm). I'll also put the link up on my tumblr, so if you have questions or if the links aren't working, hit me up there (where I am also littlelostpieces bc my creativity only stretches so far.)


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